NEWS & EVENTS
All you need to know
Highlands Motorsport Park is officially open!
One sure sign of the imminent arrival of summer is the beginning of the racing season and this year it certainly got off to a spectacular start with the Highlands 101, the first meeting to be held at the stunning new facility at Highlands Motorsport Park in Cromwell. The dream of one man, Scottish born Australian pet food magnate Tony Quinn, this new complex shows what can be done when someone with the financial means to back up his passion, sets to work.
As well as now owning somewhere to race, he also owns a race series, having taken over the running of the Australian GT championship which was on the brink of collapse, so it makes perfect sense to have a round (the last for the season) of his championship on his own track.
Was I going to miss seeing this? No way! Instead of a bunch of look-alike cars with different badges stuck on, this is racing the way it should be, with cars resembling (almost) their road-going counterparts and using different chassis layouts to go about it.
Rear-engined flat six Porsches, the lcar of Klark Quinn and Craig Baird leading the German field were running alongside front-engined V12 Aston Martins.
Tony Quinn not only owns the track and the series, he drives in it as well, this time sharing with current V8 Supercar ace Fabian Coulthard, a couple of midengined V10 Audis (one of which took a surprise victory in the first race of the meeting ahead of the much fancied “name” drivers), Greg Murphy and Aussie V8 driver turned TV commentator Neal Crompton were in the Highlands Park McLaren MP12C.
Former Leyton House and Ferrari Formula One driver Ivan Capelli was sharing a Chevrolet Corvette and local Formula 5000 frontrunners Steve Ross and Clark Proctor had forsaken the first round of the New Zealand F5000 series to share another of Tony Quinn’s cars The Mosler is a 7 litre mid-engined V8 monster which sadly expired with incurable engine problems early in the first of the three races for the GT cars over the weekend. With Lamborghinis, Ferraris, Ginettas and a Dodge Viper to round out the 20 car field, the crowd were guaranteed a spectacle of sight and sound never seen here.
What a great change it was to have a field of different looking and sounding cars all charging for the first chicane and for the main race on Sunday, the Highlands 101, a 101 lap enduro for both the Australian GT cars and some of the faster cars from the South Island Endurance Championship.
The spectators were allowed to walk along the grid as the cars and drivers were preparing for the race; a great way to really involve the crowd in the atmosphere of the race.
As an inaugural meeting it was a great success with only a few teething issues to sort before the next event, a round of the TRS and V8Supertourers on January 24-26, the main comments being that from some of the main spectator areas, the track commentary was inaudible, and closing the on-site National Motorsport Museum for Corporate hospitality wasn’t the greatest idea.
Overall a great weekend and I think many of the fans have been converted to GT racing. It was almost as good and as varied as the days of Group A.
Classic Driver on tour to Bathurst
Story by Elmar Gailitis This was a first for me, a trip organised by someone else and I was pleasantly surprised. All DID go well and the experience better than expected. Here is my story.
I met some of the team at Wellington airport, clearly identified by their Classic Driver tops. Tony was waiting for us at Sydney airport and we were soon on the road to Orange, our base for the weekend.
Through the Blue Mountains, there were the expected jokes about the Toyota van being dragged off by all and sundry, but to be fair, it was a load with 9 of us on board. After two hours we stopped at Katoomba for a great dinner, in my case the first taste of kangaroo. Very tasty and not a bit hoppy! The team spirit was gelling and during the meal we started entertaining each other with stories of our car interests and Bathurst.
We certainly would not have got the breakfast past the home censor panel – eggs, bacon, baked beans, toast; a real guy’s gastronomic event. After tucking into that, we headed off for the track, 50km away… this time the Toyota performed better… no luggage. ( TH But quite a lot of breakfast!)
Thursday. First lesson… always take someone with crutches… you get a car park next to the entrance. The guys at CD do go the extra mile to make it easy for us! Pretty soon we drifted apart as we looked at all the merchandise… no crush, only a few people about… walked about a lot and watched the first practise session.
To us older guys, the Touring Car Masters from the 70s and 80s were stunning to see and hear… wow this was going to be a special weekend!
Of course we bumped into each other and soon discovered what and who to see. It was HOT and the shirts proved their value in keeping us cool. I went through most of the public access areas and for rest would return to the grandstand where one could usually find a team member as we had pre-allocated seats.
For $5 you could catch a bus to the top of Mount Panorama, quite a climb up a mountain. That was for tomorrow. I still had space in my small rucksack so back to the merchandise stores for Christmas presents for 3 grandsons.
The day saw some great racing and a few DNFs and one spectacular write off. It was back at the van after the last practise session at 5.30pm for the return drive to the motel.
Friday. Breakfast at 7am, into van, arrive at entrance. Surprising how cool it can be in the morning and hot later on (mental note).
First stop, the museum and it had it all, especially previous winners cars and motorbikes everywhere. I was particularly impressed with a car on a hoist and you could walk underneath to find the one standard part to relate to our cars on the road… no luck there. Pretty soon you could see the detailed tuning that can be done from within the car, especially all aspects of the steering and rear wheel geometry.
could write a book on the experience up the Mountain ... the Holy Grail of Bathurst
Somewhat unexpected was the fact you could not actually walk around the whole track but on the Mount you could walk from The Cutting (wow were they honking along there) and down to past The Dipper to Forrest’s Elbow.
You got it all and with the live TV coverage, could still keep in touch with the whole race. There were also HUGE screens covering the race and coverage everywhere was excellent.
Eventually I took the bus back to the grandstand to reconnect with the team and vowed to go back on race day, Sunday, as a must do. All the time Porsches, utes, Masters and V8 Supercars were practising. Great stuff!
During the day we saw some “oops” moments and in one case a very sad write off. Yet this car reappeared on Saturday afternoon after a team truck drove 13 hours from Brisbane with new parts!!
Back in the van, Tony found a shortcut across a paddock. Rental vans CAN go everywhere! As usual, Tony dialled up the accommodation and soon after arriving and having a few cold ones, dinner arrived, as usual to a high standard.
Saturday. Now this was getting serious, up early, great breakfast and doing a Willie Nelson (on the road again)! Where do I start? Being a non teenager, the Touring Car Masters were noisy, colourful and awesome. I have many photos!
I pondered how the drivers had time to make adjustments when hurtling about the 6km track!
Next was the AWESOME Mt Panorama experience. When watching TV, we all see the cars climb up the mountain, twist though the esses and power down Conrod Straight… we also saw the crowds but the reality is that…it IS a mountain, quite a climb and hemmed in by unforgiving concrete.
In the esses, a few meters away from the cars, you can experience the madness that must be in the DNA of every driver… the high speed esses drop a LOT faster than I thought, TV does not do it justice, the road is very steep. You just have got to be there to understand.
There are obviously two classes of attendees; the bogans on the Mountain and The Rest. Can you imagine a public camping area, each with a defined tent area and supplied with firewood…hundreds of them? All Ford and Holden flags and bunting everywhere, it reminded me of the Japanese Shoguns going into battle with their flags… same thing really but a more modern interpretation without the blood (mainly).
Many campers were long time friends having made the pilgrimage for 20+ years. A camp site for a week was about $200 and the atmosphere truly to be believed. Many families had custom-made trolleys containing large LCD TVs, a mobile generator, Eskys keeping the beer cool and radio. A fully connected society up there. I
A few burn outs to keep the smell of rubber in the air between races for the support classes. At this point I would recommend a decent set of noise cancelling headphones plugged into your own FM receiver, the cheapie ones supplied on track were barely adequate. The commentary was excellent and with the huge video screens located around track, you stayed in touch with the whole 6.213km (4 mile) circuit, all over and repeated in about 2min 8 seconds if you were on song.
Pretty soon you also realised something was wrong… all the cars sort of looked the same this year; Ford, Holden, Mercedes and Nissans….most odd.
Now all the real fans know their cars are all identical under the “Car of the Future” specification. However I did not know that under the skin, the cars are absolutely identical, apart from the engines. Keeps the costs down and makes for a more even competition. I think that it was still an experience seeing the Nissan Skylines of old compete with Ford and Holden so cannot take this “leap of design” as a good thing from a spectator point of view.
There was lots of information and brand tents with technical details, team merchandise of good quality and trackside prices, just high enough to make you think a little bit but tempt you to shell out a lot. Oh well…back to the Christmas presents and a nice jacket…
The 5pm Top Ten shootout of the V8 Super was the highlight of the day, pole time of 2:07.8825 was to Holden and Jamie Whincup… not bad for 6.2km!
A full-on day, it was good to get back to the van, handy handy having it parked so close, no walking, tired, excited, expectation for tomorrow all in the mind.
Sunday. EARLY start, on the road after the now usual bloke’s breakfast and arrived at Bathurst at 7.30am. Much cooler, glad I took the jacket. Up to the grandstand, hot coffee on the way, crowds starting to appear, great expectations for a battle between Whincup and Winterbottom (aka Holden vs. Ford… well the engines are anyway).
I have really said it all. You’ve just got to make this a bucket list item. Our team was on average about 60 years old so do not let age dissuade you from going.
Tony and CD made this an incredible event. Nothing was an issue and the accommodation owners made us very welcome and worked all hours to keep us fed early in the day and again when we returned about 7pm. I could write more about Sunday and tripping about and getting home but have now ticked Bathurst off MY bucket list and hope to go again!